« Connecting Dots -- It's Back -- Government Political Spying | Main | What Is He Talking About? »
December 16, 2005
More Purchased Right-Wing Columnists
-- by Dave Johnson
This time it's part of the Abramoff scandal. Op-Eds for Sale,
A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients.This brings the Abramoff scandal one step closer to where it is heading - its tie to the funding of the Right's network of organizations that support the Republican Party. Bribes come in to pay for contracts, tax breaks, etc. Some of the taxpayer money that goes out as tax breaks, contracts, etc. is then kicked back into the political process to keep the Republicans in power. Bribes in, taxpayer dollars out, money to buy op-eds, TV ads, etc. Absolute corruption, absolute power.[. . .] Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. "I do that all the time," Ferrara says. "I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future."
Posted by Dave Johnson at December 16, 2005 10:52 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.seeingtheforest.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.fcgi/1242
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference More Purchased Right-Wing Columnists:
» Senator returns Abramoff money from Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator
Retreating under fire, Republican Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana will return donations that he receive [Read More]
Tracked on December 16, 2005 12:38 PM
Comments
This may also reflect the highly networked nature of Washington. Doug Bandow was an early member of the "Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy." It is a group of policy wonks and scholars opposed to the Iraq war and occupation.
Bandow is an anti-imperial libertarian from Cato and works with people like Steve Clemons of the New American Foundation (and TWN blog). In late July and August, Bandow blogged at Steve's Washington Note.
Posted by: Rodger at December 16, 2005 1:42 PM
It makes perfect sense. Why should the press whore for free?
Posted by: George Johnston at December 16, 2005 11:22 PM
The article in BusinessWeek that started this whole thing, upon which all subsequent articles and Paul Krugman's commentary are based, omitted important statements and resulted in a complete misrepresentation. All subsequent who have written on this topic are guilty of passing on misrepresentation without bothering to fact-check. You can view IPI's and Ferrara's statements at www.ipi.org
Posted by: Tom Giovanetti ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seeingtheforest.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 19, 2005 7:19 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
